Page 136 - 1975 BoSox

’75—THE RED SOX TEAM THAT SAVED BASEBALL 129
players were let go in favor of players who were not eligible for salary arbitration and could approximate their production at a lower cost. While some were traded for other players, others were merely sold for cash to better the bottom line. In Willoughby’s case, he was a Bu alo Head pitcher, relatively expensive for a middle reliever, and a Dick O’Connell acquisition, so he had three strikes against him.
In any case, Willoughby joined Bill Veeck and Roland Hemond’s 1978 White Sox squad. After winning 90 games in 1977, the White Sox proved disappointing, losing 90 in 1978. Willoughby started the season as the ace out of the bullpen, but as the year went on he appeared less frequently as Lerrin LaGrow took over that role. Frustrated with his lack of playing time, Willoughby asked the White Sox to play him or trade him. ey obliged, sending him to the Cardinals organization once again for out elder John Scott on October 23.
e Cardinals released Willoughby during spring training and he signed on with Wichita in the Cubs system. His contract allowed Jim to request his release if he wasn’t called up to Chicago by the trade deadline. After the Cubs traded for Dick Tidrow, Willoughby asked for and was granted his release. He searched for another pitching job and found one in Portland, Oregon, with the Pittsburgh Pirates’Triple-A a liate. Willoughby eventually wound up getting summoned to the parent club as bullpen insurance, but never got into a game. He did, however, receive a $250 World Series share from the “We Are Family” Bucs. Willoughby pitched the entire 1979 season with un- diagnosed Type I diabetes, the type that usually strikes people much earlier than in their late 20s. He was unaware of it until he went to Venezuela to play winter ball and wound up in a diabetic coma. It was neither lengthy nor deep, but he was brie y in the hospital. At this point, Willoughby retired from playing. He said he could have continued, but he was tired of the journeyman ballplayer’s life.
After his baseball career, Willoughby did a stint in sports radio. He hosted a talk show in Waltham, Massachusetts, but he didn’t care to invest the amount
of time required to properly prepare for the broadcasts. In December 1980 he was named baseball coach at Su olk University, but didn’t last a whole season. He resigned in April after he was suspended for a bat- throwing incident during practice. He also said he found the politics at Su olk worse than in any major- league clubhouse he experienced.
Willoughby moved back to his native California, where he worked in construction until he got his contractor’s license. He embarked on a career building houses on the western slope of the Sierra Nevadas.
Willoughby did get the opportunity to return to the pitcher’s mound. In 1989 and 1990, he participated in the Senior Professional Baseball Association. First, he had a chance to reunite with some of the other Bu alo Heads with the Winter Haven Super Sox. Bill Lee was the player-manager, Fergie Jenkins was the pitching coach, and Bernie Carbo was a teammate. In 1990 Willoughby pitched for the San Bernardino Pride. It was the rst time in his professional career that he pitched sober; by his own admission Willoughby was a recovering alcoholic and stopped drinking in 1983. Because of this, he felt an a nity with one of his boyhood idols, Jim orpe, who, in addition to being a fellow Native American, also had a drink- ing problem.
Willoughby and Mary Ann were divorced in the late 1970s. She was the mother of his two sons Trevor and Ryan. It was what Willoughby called “a classic case of baseball divorce.” He was married for six years to Boston area attorney Cathy Cullen, but his alcoholism ended that marriage. In 1984 he married Sandra Aubert.
Son Trevor played baseball at California State- Fullerton. Ryan played basketball in high school but su ered from bad knee injuries.
In describing himself at his website (jimwilloughby. com), this is what Willoughby had to say: “I played professional baseball for 15 years spanning 4 decades. I drank enough, smoked enough, snorted enough stu to kill me. I lost several dear friends like that. Yet, like one of my idols, Ozzy (Osbourne, not Nelson), I